All-optical compact surface plasmonic two-mode interference device for optical logic gate operation

In this paper, we have proposed an ultra-compact surface plasmonic two-mode interference (SPTMI) coupler having a silicon core, silver upper and lower cladding, and GaAsInP left and right cladding for basic logic gate operations. By modulating the refractive index of the GaAsInP cladding with incidence of optical pulse energy, we have shown coupling characteristics depending on additional phase change Delta Phi(E) between the excited surface plasmon polariton modes propagating through the silicon core. By using applied optical pulse dependent coupling behavior of the proposed SPTMI device, the operations of NOT, AND, and OR logic gates are shown. It is also seen that the coupling length of the proposed device is 32.3 times more compact than that of a multimode interference-directional coupler. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America